Details the slow but violent end of slavery in the United States between 1777--when Vermont abolished it--and the end of the Civil War; how it differed from the experiences in other countries; and the role of African Americans in their own freedom

A house divided -- The Slave Power -- The Age of Revolution. Impious prayers : slavery and the revolution ; Half slave and half free : the founding of the United States -- The Early Republic. A house dividing : Atlantic slavery and abolition in the era of the early republic ; To become a great nation : caste and resistance in the age of emancipations -- The Age of Immediatism. Minds long set on freedom : rebellion, metropolitan abolition, and sectional conflict ; Ere the storm come forth : antislavery militance and the collapse of party politics -- The Civil War and Reconstruction. This terrible war : secession, civil war, and emancipation ; One hundred years : reconstruction ; What peace among the whites brought